Customers are increasingly knowledgeable about an organisation's products and services and those of its competitors. Companies change the order of priorities to attract and keep such increasingly specialised customers.

To date firms had focused their efforts on automating transactional systems and implementing information systems that enabled them to optimise internal business processes. However, with the appearance of new specialised communications channels and the existence of multiple systems integration tasks and information flows and, consequently, the unity of business processes, have become more complex. This has forced companies to take two lines of action in connection with their customer relationships:
Match organisation resources to customer needs, putting the organisation's full capacity behind each contact and combining "knowledge" and "skills".
Understand, anticipate and respond to customer needs to convert "operations" into "relationships".

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solutions have arisen in this scenario in response to the need to optimise company - customer relationship processes and as a means of maintaining customer loyalty, satisfaction and continuity in their business dealings with the company. These solutions afford important competitive advantages:

perceive customers in one and the same way throughout the organisation,
have a suitable pool of knowledge and skills on which to draw in each contact with customers,
identify new demands and anticipate concerns,
favour multiple contacts,
use the most suitable channel to handle each contact,
ensure that information remains consolidated regardless of the channel used,
improve the qualityof customer support,
support the full relationship cycle,
control the efficiency of the action taken and the channels used.

While technology is needed, CRM also involves a change in business strategy. The exhaustive knowledge that such solutions provide makes it possible to offer personalised attention, which improves service substantially and establishes long-term relationships with customers. CRM solutions also contribute largely to optimising business proceeses by:
enhancing effectiveness, be it in the form of time savings in performing tasks, the ability to take advantage of opportunities for cross-selling, up-selling or introducing new products and services, or centralised and immediate management of the offer generated,
increasing user motivation due both to automation of administrative processes and the confidence and security afforded by a tool that handles contacts with customers,
cutting training costs by minimising face-to-face courses and the risk of personnel turnover, preserving company expertise,
providing for short-term returns on investment by increasing profits at rates of from 7% to 10% in a short period of time.

These tools are designed to enhance the cost-effectiveness of company systems that interact with its environment (customers, partners, suppliers...). They also add muscle to present functionalities and new technologies in business scenarios: marketing, sales and services, providing for effective handling of customer relationships and assimilating the requirements characteristic of each industry.